


The Audition

by silveradept



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Dancing, Gen, Metalbending & Metalbenders, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7445398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuvira returns to the thing that she knows best, after her bid to unify the Earth Empire failed. The metal helps her think. The dance helps her feel. In front of no-one, Kuvira puts on the performance of her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Audition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fanfic_nonnie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfic_nonnie/gifts).



It had been a very long time since she had been in an empty theater. The last few years had been exhausting, and while she had tried to catch some practice when she could, the duties, the fighting, and the waiting had suggested to her that she might be out of practice.

She had once joked about "being rusty" to Suyin, thinking it was a great joke, but there was only silence. After rehearsal, someone took pity on her and explained about the accident. Since then, it had always been about practice.

Dropping her pack backstage, Kuvira was very glad she chose to wear flexible fashions today. Someone had left the lights running for a performance, making it impossible to see past the first few rows, but that was fine - nobody was there to watch her. If she wanted to be honest with herself, she liked being out of the spotlight, metaphorically, so that she could focus on the actual spotlights illuminating her stage. She stretched, listening to the creaks and snaps of her body until they eased into pliability, their complaints duly heard and responded to.

She had seen, much earlier in life, Varrick writing a proposal for a mover that would have shown her life from its humble beginnings to her then-height of power at the head of the Earth Empire. At the time, she had laughed. A mover couldn't capture everything that had happened to her. That, and she didn't trust Varrick to sensationalize all of it into some strange thing.

Ever since then, even though she would never admit it, she had been planning out what the dance of her life would look like. Now, all she had was time...and an empty theater. Nobody would know. And maybe, if she ever got the chance, she would know what she wanted when someone did ask her about her story. Why not?

[[I. Dive Into The Heart - Destati](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYq_haVGu_c)]

The first thing metalbender dancers are supposed to do, whether in rehearsal or performance, was to make some basic forms with their bodies and with the metal available - balls, cubes, cylinders. It was a ritual that was supposed to show the audience and other performers that the dancer was competent and would be able to control both their bodies and the metal when the dancing began in earnest. For some dancers, it helped them ground, for others, it was a formality to be hurried through.

Kuvira never liked it at all, and so, with nobody watching, she began to dance, alone, free...and unwanted. She had never been wanted, right from the beginning. As early as she could remember, her life had been a series of orphanages and houses, of potential parents examining them with the same eye they would their livestock, of polite, relentlessly rehearsed conversation topics, of cute and entertaining metalbending tricks, of hopes that this family might be the one that would decide to keep her after the trial period, and disappointments, of course, when none of those families actually did. Kuvira danced in her pain, creating families from the ample metal around before flinging them away from her, accusing fingers pointed and backs turned to her, only to re-form them in new configurations as her memories played to the audience. As she remembered the experience the cruelty of others, a little bit of each families' metal flew and attached itself to her.

Her dance became slower and less emotive, even as the fragmentation from each family grew more violent, until Kuvira had built for herself a suit of armor, appearing to have weighted her down so much to stop her in her tracks, slowly dragging her down to the stage floor, where, for a moment, the dance stopped, but, if there had been an audience, they would have seen what had been simultaneously building behind Kuvira - two teenaged figures made of metal, one clad in the familiar uniform of the Republic City Police, one with a lotus in her hair.

[[II. This Will Be The Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf1zE-usFfA)]

After softly winding down to the floor, Kuvira and her armor exploded back into the dance, with the two metal teenagers flying to opposite sides of the stage, the armor jumping off Kuvira's body and transforming into one of the symbols of the Triads - an older symbol of a syndicate that was no longer in business. It was the first one that she, Lin, and Suyin has pretended to be the bosses of in lurid and imaginative plays, before Suyin tried to join them and Lin succeeded at breaking them apart while working with Toph. Kuvira had been a friend of both daughters at the time, but often found herself in the middle of feuds between the two. Lin represented law, order, and working your way through the system to achieve greatness and Suyin...Suyin represented fun. Dangerous fun, of course, as there were many adventures of trying to find the headquarters of one or another syndicate, stumbling into it and having to either fight their way out, convince them they wanted to join (and then betraying them as soon as possible, whether to Lin or a different Triad), or hiding long enough for Lin or Toph to find them.

As Kuvira danced the pull she had felt between them, slowly gravitating her way toward the metal Suyin, the logos of the syndicates appeared in the pieces of her armor suspended above the stage, changing slowly at first, but accelerating as both metal sisters grew in size and started to move in toward reach other. As they moved in closer, the sisters struck increasingly more combative stances toward each other. Kuvira had known something was boiling between them, but she hadn't known how serious it would be until it was too late, until the fateful day of the Break. The metal forming syndicate badges dropped out of the sky and built a wall between metal Lin and metal Suyin, leaving Kuvira on the side with Suyin. She had chosen Suyin long before she had realized it, but she had believed, foolishly, that the two of them could remain friends. They were sisters, after all, and family was supposed to be a magical thing, unbreakable when members cared for each other. To see family members create such a rift had cracked Kuvira's heart once again. Kuvira held metal Suyin's hand as the wall and Lin both appeared to slowly disintegrate, leaving only the two of them on the stage, surrounded by metal dust. Her world had changed, and there was no way to go back.

[[III. Shatter Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtDTFEWiUI)]

Kuvira stopped for a moment, the memory of her family ripping itself apart surprising her with still strong emotions. It had been decades since the rift. Why did she still feel guilt? She hadn't done anything to drive them apart - that had been all Toph's doing. As she had then, rather than try to process the emotions that came with the trauma, she returned to the narrative that she had already built for herself. The dust on the stage began to reassemble itself, in small leaves at first, then the leaves joined together to form small lotuses, the beginnings of the ideas that would result in the great metalbender state - Zaofu. The metal Suyin, now full-grown, weaved in and out of the lotuses gracefully. As she passed them, the lotuses combined into other forms. Some took on the shapes of metalbending dances; the basic metal creation forms; advances in the arts and sciences; the meteorites in the garden; the monorail; and more. Slightly behind the metal Suyin was a metal Kuvira, shuffling mechanically, slightly out of sync with the dance going around on around her; the flesh-and-blood Kuvira remembered a large part of her early time had been just her going through the motions while trying not to feel anything. While her metal self clumsily tried to keep time, Kuvira whirled and spun in place, the agitated mind in contrast to the mechanical body.

As all the metal ideas concentrated and eventually merged into the lotus of Zaofu, now surrounded by the rest of the Earth Kingdom's map, the metal Suyin and metal Kuvira danced a duet, with Suyin leading, beckoning, and encouraging Kuvira, as she had then. As the metal women danced, the stiffness of her metal self began to match the fluidity of the fleshy dancer, until all of the dancing women, metal and flesh alike, were whirling underneath the lotus, happy together while the kingdom around them fell apart.

[[IV. Time To Say Goodbye](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGPaNnRGzjY)]

As the last piece of the Earth Kingdom clattered to the stage, the metal Suyin released her hands from the metal Kuvira. Rather than dissolving into a mecha soldier, as Kuvira had intended, the metal Suyin persisted, trying to offer comfort to the metal Kuvira as she transformed into the soldier instead. Perhaps her subconscious was insisting on accuracy - Suyin hasn't raised a hand against her at that point.

She had tried to convince Suyin that she should take command of the Earth Kingdom. And here was where the movers would always get it wrong - they would have put Bataar Junior in there, whether as the "real" reason she had done it, or that her love for him had led to reckless judgment. None of it was true. She had seen the future of the Earth Kingdom, and the only way it would survive another war was to unite. It was her decision.

She wanted to be the Great Uniter. But if unity meant becoming Kuvira the Destroyer, the villain everyone hated, feared, but most importantly _obeyed_ , then that was just a necessary sacrifice.

Dismissing the odd behavior of her metallic leader of Zaofu, Kuvira focused on the next part of her dance. Metalbending dance had always had roots in combat, but this was the point where any pretense of art was stripped away, as Kuvira summoned and controlled metallic versions of her troops and the bandits, guards, and soldiers that she had defeated on her unification campaign and pit them against each other in what would have been a deadly storm of metal flying at metal, as each province and kingdom slowly rose above the conflict and joined itself to the others in the Empire, with Kuvira at the center of the maelstrom.

As more provinces joined, the conflict shards stayed to coalesce into the main players of the conflict. Varrick had been recruited because of his greed, but it had been Zhu Li that provided most of the brains of that operation. Suyin and Lin both stood against her, and Bataar Junior had been forced to choose between who he loved more. She had loved him, despite what everyone said, but she never let her love get in the way of a tactical decision. He couldn't accept that even he might be asked to die for the cause, and so she flung his metallic visage away from her to the side of her opposition. Rather than go swiftly, as he had seemed to do in life, he tarried and looked back at her, sadness on his face as he slowly went away.

Bolin had been a great asset to her - he was loyal to the cause, he wanted to do good, and she had to admit, he had looked good as Nuktuk. A famous mover star on her side was a great publicly boost, but his commitment to what was necessary wavered, and ultimately he returned to Opal and her greatest adversary, the final figure in metal rising in front of the others arrayed against her - the Avatar. As Korra's shape came into fuller form, the conflict slowed to a crawl, and then to a complete halt, suspended as a moment in time, as metal Korra and Kuvira each took their respective fighting stances, the prelude to the inevitable clash. Only one of them would be able to claim their victory.

It was when the metal Korra struck first that Kuvira feared something had gone very wrong with her metalbending. Instead of the choreographed fight she had envisioned, with intricate dances between sharp fragments of metal as the two weaved in and out of a representation of the war she waged, Kuvira found the entire conflict completely out of her control, only able to be peripherally aware of everything around her as the metal Avatar pressed her and demanded her full attention with a flurry of blows and strikes that aimed to hurt, or worse. It fought like the Avatar did now, using skill and tactics and an awareness of its metal body that was frightening, instead of the brash and clumsy Avatar that she had fought on the battlefield years ago.

If her subconscious was trying to kill her, for whatever reason, it was doing a really effective job. Blocks, strikes, dodges, bending nearby metal into weapons and projectiles, all her effort went into trying to prevent herself from dying long enough to reassert control over her attacker. When the attacking Avatar surrounded her with a sphere of spears, she unconsciously armored herself with a replica of the giant mecha she had fought the United Republic with, screaming in panic as she fought off the seemingly endless rain of projectiles backing her into a corner of the stage. Just as she felt that her energy would give out on her, the lights flashed blindingly and the stage plummeted into darkness.

As she sank to the stage, exhausted, Kuvira was certain she heard Suyin scolding someone for making things too realistic, and someone who sounded like the Avatar dismissing it by saying Kuvira wasn't in any real danger.

[[ V. End of the World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc77S51RnbU)]

Kuvira laid flat in the darkness for a little while, thrilled to be alive, even as her mind raced with questions about what had just happened. Habit took over for conscious thought while she processed, so she had bent all of the metal she had used in her performance back into its storage, smoothed, straightened, and ready for the next performance before her mind caught up to what had happened. The metal that had been used against her was the next to be put away, apparently now devoid of its animating force, but Kuvira was on guard against its return.

Having cleaned the stage, Kuvira knew there was more of her story to be told, but she had no wish to go back over the time after her defeat at the hands of the Avatar, where Bataar Junior had truly left her and she spent years of her life in a Republic City prison. She had visitors - Lin, Suyin, the Avatar - but every day there was a reminder of her failure to achieve her goals. It was only recently that she had been able to return to Zaofu, the city where she had led, if only briefly, in the kingdom that she had almost reunited and made stronger. Suyin's constant offers of a place to stay had felt like mocking to her, but after having wandered the world and been cursed at by everyone but the Air Nomads, Kuvira had realized that the only place where she could hope for something more a normal life would be in Zaofu.

The perspective of time had given her a new look on her life. Putting get thoughts and ideas out on the stage had been cathartic, at least until the metal had rebelled against her. Even after she had been scared for her life, though, she felt more aligned with herself than she had in many years.

As she returned to observe the world around her, she realized the theater was no longer silent, but rang with applause from an audience that could not have been there when she started. As soon as she had stepped on the stage, they must have slipped into the theater, counting on the lights to stop her from seeing past the first few rows.

The lights on stage turned off, revealing who had been watching her. Suyin, Bolin, both Bataars, some of the dance instructors she recognized from her time in the troupe so long ago... and the Avatar and her girlfriend, the head of Future Industries. That, at least, explained how the performance had gotten so far out of hand - the audience had apparently decided the show was participatory.

"Splendid performance," Suyin said, once the clapping had died down. "I don't think I've seen that much metal at work to tell a story, Kuvira."

Kuvira felt betrayed. "That was for..."

"...nobody to see." Suyin finished. "And nobody will, unless you decide you want to make it into a more formal production. As an audition, though, I think it is an excellent piece. You clearly demonstrated your talents to the satisfaction of everyone here, I believe."

The instructors nodded their heads. Bolin gave her a thumbs up, and the Avatar and her girlfriend nodded.

"Audition?" Kuvira's initial anger and desire for revenge, inflamed by what she thought was a smug look on the Avatar's face, yielded to confusion.

"Audition. I feel quite comfortable, Kuvira, in telling you that you are accepted as a metal dance instructor here in Zaofu. I look forward to the work that you and your students will be able to perform. You'll meet your new class on Monday." Without waiting for Kuvira to protest, object, or flatly refuse to work with anyone ever again, Suyin and the audience rose from their seats and exited the theater, chatting quietly about what they had seen.

Kuvira would get this mistake sorted out as soon as she could. Right after she got done finding a way to pay the Avatar back for the terror she had induced. Age had clearly not diminished the Avatar's taste for practical jokes, and it seemed that perhaps there was still the makings of a grudge from all the fighting they had done earlier.

Now that she thought about it, having a class of devoted followers might just be the thing she needed to pull a proper revenge. The plan was already starting to come together in her mind. Once she knew the capabilities of her students, the play could begin with as much speed as possible.

Monday couldn't come fast enough.


End file.
